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Briefing Papers

It is widely accepted that citizen security and public safety are the main challenges threatening Jamaica’s growth and
development. With support from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) CAPRI thus undertook the
Transforming Citizen Security a Yaad project (CSAY). Through this project, which ran from May 2017 to March 2020,
CAPRI produced four reports, on pertinent issues related to citizen security, and a draft crime scorecard. Each report
was launched with a live-streamed public forum that brought together relevant key stakeholders, and where the public was
directly engaged. A number of highlevel key stakeholders participated in the creation of the crime scorecard, with the next
expected step to collaborate with a relevant government agency, and perhaps another civil society organization,
to operationalize it, so it can fulfill its tremendous potential as a tool of improving the state’s accountability to
its citizens.

The reports covered police reform, the efficacy of anti-violence interventions, the relationship between scamming, gangs, and
violence, and an in-depth analysis of Jamaica’s contemporary gang dynamics. These were four critical issues that, expert
stakeholders agreed, would benefit from up-to-date, evidence based research and analysis, to move the debate, thinking, and
policy forward.

It is widely accepted that citizen security and public safety are the principal challenges threatening Jamaica’s growth and development. With support from the UK’s Department for International Development(DFID) CAPRI undertook the Transforming Citizen Security a Yaad project, and produced four reports on pertinent issues related to citizen security. The reports covered police reform, the efficacy of anti-violence interventions, the relationship between scamming, gangs, and violence, and an in-depth analysis of Jamaica’s contemporary gang dynamics. These were four critical issues that, expert stakeholders agreed, would benefit from up-to-date, evidence based research and analysis, to move the debate, thinking, and policy forward.

Caribbean countries have largely failed to achieve the targets of the MDGs. Whether our governments purposefully assigned a low priority to the effort or were constrained by limited capacity, ignoring the MDGs may very well have been a good decision. However, it would be a mistake for Caribbean leaders not to engage the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Jamaica generates approximately 800,000 tons of residential waste annually. The proper management and disposal of this waste is the responsibility of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA). However, the continued dumping of waste at this waste-shed with little or no sorting poses major health and environmental concerns.

This policy brief was motivated by the need to increase awareness and understanding of the potential benefits of proper waste management and waste minimization practices. The routine occurrence of fire at the most active waste management site in Jamaica – the Riverton landfill – is also of major concern. These fires, resulting from spontaneous combustion and arson, serve to highlight the health and environmental risks associated with poor waste management practices.

There has been a recent outcry in Jamaica against the high and increasing fees and charges being levied by banks on some of their services. The fees attracting most attention are those that relate to basic transactions such as withdrawing cash from another bank’s ATM or stopping payment on a cheque. Charges on fairly common misdemeanours, such as writing a cheque that subsequently bounces or incurring an overdra on an account are also frequently identified as being exorbitant.i Because these fees and charges are levied on fairly commonplace activities, the cumulative effect on an individual or firm can be high, and the aggregate macroeconomic effect through heightened transactions costs cannot be ignored.

The value of the lottery scam in Jamaica is estimated to be as much as US$300 million in one year. As a small developing state with a strong ICT infrastructure, Jamaica has been a haven for international investors seeking to cash in.

An overview of the insolvency regime in Jamaica and a proposal for the corporate rescue and rehabilitation reforms based on the best practices for insolvency, bankruptcy, receivership and administration in the Caribbean, U.K., Canada and the U.S.A.

Over the last decade, scrap metal theft has emerged as an epidemic across the globe. This paper draws lessons from the international scrap metal experience to inform the Jamaican context and makes policy recommendations for the effective regulation of the industry.

An overhaul of Jamaica’s tax system is long overdue, but maximizing the effectiveness of the reform process requires a clear sense of priority. This brief highlights the most pressing tax reform measures for improving the Jamaican economy.

Development assistance, specifically targeting renewables in developing countries, exceeded US $2 billion in 2008; such investment has been possible due to the existence of an enabling policy framework for renewables in the host country. This brief outlines the policy regimes available to Caribbean policy makers wishing to usher in a new energy era, by designing enabling policies which will allow them to tap into funding earmarked for renewable energy.